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DocumentationNostrNostr Relay

Nostr Relay

A nostr relay written in Rust with support for the entire relay protocol and data persistence using SQLite.

Nostr Relay

Preparations

Install dependencies

These are build dependencies (safe to remove after installation, if you want)

$SU apk add --virtual .build-deps cargo cargo-auditable clang-dev cmake git \
    make pkgconf protobuf-c-compiler sqlite-dev

These are runtime dependencies

$SU apk add sqlite

Create the nostr user/group

$SU addgroup -S nostr
$SU adduser \
    -S \
    -D \
    -H \
    -h /dev/null \
    -s /sbin/nologin \
    -G nostr \
    -g nostr \
    nostr

Add the user satoshi to the group nostr as well

$SU adduser satoshi nostr && exec su -l satoshi

Installation

Clone the source code

We get the latest release of the nostr-rs-relay source code, compile it to an executable binary and install it.

  • Download the source code for the latest nostr-rs-relay release. You can check the release page to see if a newer release is available. Other releases might not have been properly tested with the rest of the Microbolt configuration, though.
cd /tmp
VERSION=0.9.0
git clone --branch $VERSION https://git.sr.ht/~gheartsfield/nostr-rs-relay && cd nostr-rs-relay

Configure, compile and install

  • Now compile the source code into an executable binary and install it.
cargo auditable build \
    --bin nostr-rs-relay \
    --release \
    --locked \
    --jobs "$(nproc)"
$SU install -m 0755 -o root -g root -t /usr/bin ./target/release/nostr-rs-relay
$SU install -D -m 0660 -o nostr -g nostr ./config.toml /etc/nostr-rs-relay/config.toml

Strip installed binaries

$SU strip /usr/bin/nostr-rs-relay

Cleanup

cd
rm -rf /tmp/nostr-rs-relay
$SU apk del .build-deps

Configuration

  • Modify the config file with the following content
$SU $EDITOR /etc/nostr-rs-relay/config.toml
/etc/nostr-rs-relay/config.toml
[...]
#relay_url = "wss://nostr.example.com/"
[...]
name = "Microbolt Nostr Relay"
[...]
description = "A Nostr Relay running on Microbolt"
[...]
address = "127.0.0.1"
[...]
port = 8880
[...]

Autostart on boot

Nostr Relay needs to start automatically on system boot.

  • Create the nostr-rs-relay init.d unit and copy/paste the following configuration
$SU $EDITOR /etc/init.d/nostr-rs-relay
/etc/init.d/nostr-rs-relay
#!/sbin/openrc-run
 
: ${NOSTR_RELAY_CONFIGFILE:=/etc/nostr-rs-relay/config.toml}
: ${NOSTR_RELAY_DATADIR:=/var/lib/nostr-rs-relay}
: ${NOSTR_RELAY_LOGDIR:=/var/log/nostr-rs-relay}
: ${NOSTR_RELAY_USER:=nostr}
: ${NOSTR_RELAY_GROUP:=nostr}
: ${NOSTR_RELAY_BIN:=/usr/bin/nostr-rs-relay}
: ${NOSTR_RELAY_RUST_LOG:=info,nostr_rs_relay=info}
: ${NOSTR_RELAY_OPTS=${NOSTR_RELAY_OPTS}}
: ${NOSTR_RELAY_SIGTERM_TIMEOUT:=600}
 
NOSTR_RELAY_PIDDIR="/run/nostr-rs-relay"
 
required_files="${NOSTR_RELAY_CONFIGFILE}"
pidfile="${NOSTR_RELAY_PIDDIR}/${SVCNAME}.pid"
retry="${NOSTR_RELAY_SIGTERM_TIMEOUT}"
 
name="Nostr Relay"
description="A Rust implementation of Nostr relay"
 
command="${NOSTR_RELAY_BIN}"
command_args="--db ${NOSTR_RELAY_DATADIR}
              --config ${NOSTR_RELAY_CONFIGFILE}
              ${NOSTR_RELAY_OPTS}"
command_user="${NOSTR_RELAY_USER}:${NOSTR_RELAY_GROUP}"
command_background="true"
 
start_stop_daemon_args="--env RUST_LOG=${NOSTR_RELAY_RUST_LOG}
                        --stdout ${NOSTR_RELAY_LOGDIR}/debug.log
                        --stderr ${NOSTR_RELAY_LOGDIR}/debug.log"
 
depend() {
    need net
    after logger firewall
}
 
start_pre() {
    checkpath --file      --mode 0660 --owner "${command_user}" "${NOSTR_RELAY_CONFIGFILE}"
    checkpath --directory --mode 0750 --owner "${command_user}" "${NOSTR_RELAY_DATADIR}"
    checkpath --directory --mode 0755 --owner "${command_user}" "${NOSTR_RELAY_LOGDIR}"
    checkpath --directory --mode 0755 --owner "${command_user}" "${NOSTR_RELAY_PIDDIR}"
}
 
stop() {
    ebegin "Stopping ${SVCNAME}"
    pkill -TERM -P "$(cat ${pidfile})" > /dev/null 2>&1
    start-stop-daemon \
        --stop \
        --pidfile="${pidfile}" \
        --retry="${NOSTR_RELAY_SIGTERM_TIMEOUT}" \
        --exec="${NOSTR_RELAY_BIN}"
    eend $?
}
  • Enable execution permission
$SU chmod +x /etc/init.d/nostr-rs-relay

Enable logrotate

  • Enter the complete next configuration. Save and exit
/etc/logrotate.d/nostr-rs-relay
/var/log/nostr-rs-relay/*.log {
    weekly
    missingok
    rotate 104
    compress
    delaycompress
    notifempty
    create 0640 nostr nostr
    sharedscripts
    postrotate
        kill -HUP `cat /run/nostr-rs-relay/nostr-rs-relay.pid`
    endscript
}
  • Test
$SU logrotate /etc/logrotate.d/nostr-rs-relay --debug

Enable and start Nostr relay

$SU rc-update add nostr-rs-relay
$SU rc-service nostr-rs-relay start
  • Check the log to see Nostr relay output. Exit with Ctrl-C
tail -f /var/log/nostr-rs-relay/debug.log
  • Ensure the service is working and listening at the default 8880 port
$SU netstat -lntup | grep LISTEN | grep nostr
output
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8880            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      7030/nostr-rs-relay

For the future: Nostr relay update

Follow again Nostr relay page replacing the environment variable VERSION=x.xx value for the latest if it has not been already changed in this guide.

  • Update the Nostr relay configuration if necessary (see release notes)
$SU $EDITOR /etc/nostr-rs-relay/config.toml
  • Restart the service to apply the changes
$SU rc-service nostr-rs-relay restart
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